Inventors of the Year

The annual Ericsson Inventor of the Year award acknowledges the talent and hard work of those whose technology innovations enrich the company’s portfolio.

For 140 years, the ideas, technology and people of the company have created a monumental impact in many different ways and on many different levels. As a result, they have transformed lives, industries, and society as a whole.

Award-winning research

Bold innovations drive us forward. At Ericsson, we strive to recognize our inventors’ hard work and contributions to our patent portfolio. The Inventor of the Year award celebrates the pioneers who go above and beyond.

With over 49,000 granted patents worldwide, we are a leading patent holder in the wireless industry – which is made possible by our substantial investment in R&D and our creative inventors with an ability to think differently.

For over 20 years, our Inventor of the Year award has recognized the outstanding contributions of our inventors – highlighting the importance of patents and licensing in maintaining our position at the forefront of technological innovation.

Watch videos about previous winners

Innovation is part of our DNA

Ericsson’s ideas, technology and people have made a monumental impact over the last 140 years, contributing to transforming lives, industries, and society as a whole. Ericsson R&D has enabled­­ many of the everyday activities you take for granted – such as Bluetooth, touchscreen scrolling and 4G/LTE technology – while ensuring other companies benefit from our technology innovations through fair, reasonable and non-discriminatory (FRAND) principles.

As we pave the road to 5G, our industry-leading innovators are driving us towards our vision of the networked society every day – and we strive to recognize, reward and invest in their valuable contributions to the future of communications.

Previous Inventors of the Year

Erik Eriksson

Awarded for his outstanding work in LTE evolution and the foundation of the 5G New Radio (NR) standard. His work to increase LTE network capacity, along with his contributions to machine type communications (MTC) and massive multiple-input multiple-output (MIMO), are all important components of our networked society vision. (2016)

Havish Koorapaty

Chosen for sharing his expertise and inspiring his Ericsson colleagues for over 20 years. This award recognizes his longstanding work on virtually every wireless system sold by Ericsson – and his central role in the strategic push to expand our mobile technology capabilities into local access. (2016)

Mattias Frenne

As a local innovation leader, Mattias mentors, coaches and provides valuable support to other researchers. This prize rewards his role in LTE evolution and the foundation of the 5G NR standard. (2016)

John Diachina

The award is granted for his longstanding contribution of a wide range of inventions relating to GSM, WCDMA, LTE and WiFi (2015)

Magnus Stattin

The award is granted for his inventions relating to Radio Network Architecture and Radio Network Protocols (2015)

Karl Norrman

The award is granted for his contributions to ensure Ericsson´s leading position in Security (2015)

Daniel Larsson

Award granted for work as Technical Coordinator for the Standardization Team in 3GPP RAN WG1 (2014)

Gunnar Mildh

Award granted for work on Radio Network Architecture and Radio Network Protocol (2014)

Panagiotis Saltsidis

Award granted for his inventions relating to Packet Networks and Ethernet Services (2014)

Thorsten Lohmar

Award granted for media delivery work with m-peg broadcast (2013)

Fredrik Gunnarsson

Award granted for work on smart network nodes (2013)

Rickard Sjöberg

Award granted for video compression (2013)

Henning Wiemann

Award granted for work in LTE and LTE-Advanced (2012)

Thomas Cheng

Award granted for work around channel coding and receiver algorithms (2011)

Muhammad Kazmi

Award granted for radio resource management algorithms (2010)

Robert Baldemair

Award granted for air interface design (2010)

Jacob Österling

Award granted for work on Ericsson’s RBS 6000 (2010)

Mats Näslund

Award granted for work in network security in LTE, IMS and fixed-mobile convergence (2009)